Sexual Violence

Sexual Violence is an act of terrorism intended to create fear, to prolong inferiority, and to perpetuate women's and men's vulnerability. Sexual violence is primarily "gender" violence. It is used as a weapon to wage war on women and girls in the forms of domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, female genital mutilation/cutting, trafficking, and emotional and physical abuse. Gender violence threatens peace and security. Invisible barriers prevent any effective action against these crimes within communities and nations.

We as a global society have allowed Sexual Assault, Rape, and Sexual Harassment to thrive with immunity far too long! At the heart of sexual violence is a barbaric crime against girls and women that has continued for thousands of years. We are living in a global culture of fear unable to prevent violent sex crimes. Every second of everyday women and girls worldwide suffer from domestic violence, rape, female genital mutilation/cutting, dowry-related killing, trafficking, or sexual violence. The UN has determined that, "We have become a predatory global society that isn't willing to manage predatory behavior toward girls, boys, and women!"

In industrialized and non-industrialized nations, women are not part of the political process or able to have a voice to create change nationally and internationally. They cannot be part of the solution that affects them and all of society! Somehow as a global society we have acquired a high tolerance for sexual predators and a zero tolerance for those who report rape, sexual assault, and harassment! We are living in a global culture of silence. Even though sexual violence is occurring in the world, we don't yet live in a society where survivors can openly discuss what happened to them!

"We are the only animal on the planet who repeatedly abuses and sexually assaults the smaller and weaker of the species for fun or sport." Anonymous

The three major areas of sexual brutality that are in the headlines are Sexual Assault, Rape, and Sexual Harassment. Here is a brief definition.

Sexual Assault is any form of sexual behavior that is not consented to and that causes discomfort, fear or intimidation and is considered sexual assault in most jurisdictions. Sexual assault includes indecent exposure, unwanted physical contact, including kissing and fondling, lascivious acts, as well as oral and anal sex and vaginal rape, whether with a body part or an instrument.

Rape is forced penetration facilitated by the use of drugs, alcohol, beating, knocking the victim unconscious, use of a weapon or physical force without his/her permission. Rape is an act of violence expressed through sex, but is not primarily about sex. Rape is the only crime in which victims have to explain that they didn't want to be victimized.

Sexual Harassment is intimidation, taunting, bullying, unwelcome sexual advances, request for sexual favors or physical harassment along with inappropriate language and gestures of a sexual nature. Sexual harassment is a form of sexual discrimination and civil rights discrimination. Persistent sexual harassment does affect an individual's employment, interferes with work performance, and creates a hostile and offensive work environment. Sexual harassment can, and often does, lead to sexual assault and/or rape.

Solutions for this heinous and barbaric crime against all of us have been slow to be enacted within any nation. Effective solutions need to address the following:

Stoppage of victimization of women while pursing legal prosecution of the predator

Acknowledgment that sexual violence is a global pandemic

Awareness that sexual violence against women reflects fundamental gender inequality

A global culture who doesn't value a woman's voice will have trouble respecting a woman's right to choose who or what she will engage in

Sexual violence is an act of terrorism intended to create fear, to prolong inferiority, and to perpetuate women's and men's vulnerability

Ending sexual violence through real education about women's full and equal rights, respectful relationships, and real consequences for criminal behavior

Any effective solutions at a community, national, or world level to prevent sexual violence need to be easily understood, simple to implement, and have the ability to pursue and prosecute predators. In addition, women must be allowed a voice of equality in the revision of their nation's constitution and bill of rights to add the words "Woman and Female"!

What to Do If You Have an Abusive Partner

What do you do when you are sensing your partner is abusive to you? Do you stay in this relationship or leave? Can you change them by 'loving' them more? Will they be truly sorry for the things they have said?

Firstly your intuition will be indicating to you, that something is terribly wrong. Your emotions will be telling you that you are unhappy in this relationship. But you reason with yourself that you really love them.

We must identify what is sexual attraction as opposed to real love. Many times we confuse our sexual feelings that we feel towards our partner - as love.'But I really love him' we say to ourselves. 'I won't feel this way towards anyone ever again!' These feelings are very strong and so real - that even though we are being abused, we keep hoping that the honeymoon period will return. We hope that we can put our differences aside even when our partners is lashing out abuse onto us.

If you have an abusive partner the best thing is to try to stand up for yourself and tell your partner quite strongly - that you are not going to be spoken to like this. Sometimes an abusive person wants to see us react, and they get a kick out of it, knowing that they have hurt us. On the other hand, when we don't stand up for ourselves strongly enough, someone may lose complete respect for us. This is due to a poor self esteem.

Secondly, is this relationship worth it? We need to ask ourselves why we might be putting up with abuse when someone totally disrespects us.

By getting some help from a counsellor or a friend, we may be able to identify whether we are being abused, as opposed to being too sensitive and taking things the wrong way.

Firstly recognise the abuse. If this is the case and it looks as if our abuser is not going to change - nor is sorry for what they have done, then it might be time to end the relationship. This is mostly for your own self-preservation as they continue to destroy you and your self-esteem. They could leave you feeling thoroughly depleted as they take from you, and then poison you with venomous words that hurt and cut deeply. This says more about them, than it does about you.

Disincentivize Abuse - Prosecute False Advertising

Yet another person I know is now attempting to divorce a man who has been highly abusive to her. This woman has strong education in psychology, and she has dated this person for three years to ensure that he was a good person; then when they got married he turned into a brute and a creep. If this can happen even in face of such strong screening tactics and application of knowledge and intelligence, then it is obvious that this happens all the time.

Many people tend to blame the victim in such situations; but in most cases the partner has no way of knowing. One acts one way while wooing and another way while married. This leads me to conclude that, like in business, in relationships there is a need for a clause against false advertising in order to correct for such abuses.

False advertising is misrepresenting the product. In business, false advertising is a crime that is punishable by fine or by jail time. In relationships, there is no clause against false advertising; and people continue to fool prospective partners, presenting themselves as good people while wooing and then turning into brutes and scoundrels when the partner is theirs.

How much greater the problem when it's not just a product being bought and sold but people's lives. How much greater the problem when as a result the person is trapped in a terrible situation. How much greater the problem when this abuse affects them and their children daily and to a far greater extent than does any malfeasance we find in the production process - indeed in many cases to a greater extent than if they were in prison or in a war.

In business there is accountability for what's said and done; but in relationships there is no such accountability. A person who wants to be a creep to his wife can get away with it in many cases, even in some situations securing custody of the kids. The same skills that one uses to entrap someone in a bad situation one uses to manipulate the courts and the public to deny his malfeasance and to blame the partner. This is good for scammers; it's bad for everyone else.

It is ironic that many of the people who claim to speak for morals or family values like to blame women in case they find themselves in such situations and to blame them more if they leave. A person who truly respects values will be against fraud and deception; and that also means fraud and deception in how one chooses to woo one's partner or how one chooses to treat one's partner while married. If someone misrepresents himself, then he has committed the original ethical violation. And it is one for which he and not his partner is responsible.

Really, anyone with skills in marketing, law or related disciplines can con people if he wants to. And when strong screening tactics fail to prevent abuse, it makes no sense to rely on them. The bottom line is that it's not difficult at all to act one way while wooing and another while married. Which means that there needs to be an incentive to not act that way.

It means that there needs to be accountability for one's conduct in a relationship, especially if it's in discord with what one has advertised while wooing the partner.

I advocate that there be statutes against false advertising in relationships, where false advertising becomes instant ground for dissolution of marriage or de facto relationship. There needs to be accountability for how people present themselves to prospective partners and how they behave when the partner is theirs. If a man presents himself as a nice person but turns out to be a brute, that is false advertising. And it is false advertising that carries vastly greater consequence than does misrepresenting a business product.

Ultimately false advertising is this: Fraud. This is as much the case in marital situations as it is the case in business. False advertising, like other forms of fraud, must be done away with. And that means changing the laws to make false advertising in relationships as illegal as it is in business.

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Creating What You Do Not Want Is Not Your Fault

Domestic violence is one of the most dis-empowering situations that a woman can find herself in. The pain is not always physical violence. It can be emotional, mental and or psychological. I specialise in working with women who have experienced situations which have caused them to be dis-empowered and violated and who want to release their past and fully step into their future. They usually find they are experiencing different types of problems after the relationship.

Some of the issues and situations they find themselves in are

Health problems

Depression

Exhaustion

Difficulty dveloping new relationships

Attracting similar partners

Emotional difficulties

Difficult relationships with their children

Guilt

Self blame

Self harm

Self medicating

Wanting to be invisible

Staying invisible, hiding out

The emotions that are running in them are in fact running in their unconscious mind. Take the example of a women who has experienced domestic violence and has managed to leave the relationship. she will have experienced many negative emotions from the abuse she has suffered. She may have beliefs that she deserves it or she is to blame. It might be a belief that people can 'see it in her', or that all men or women will do the same to her. Those beliefs will be running in her unconscious mind, she may not even be aware of them yet she finds herself in similar situations.

Many women are walking around completely confused as to what is really going on with them. They have not been shown how the unconscious mind holds onto negative emotions for the sole purpose of protecting her. That is one of the intentions of the unconscious mind, to protect. If she believes everyone will abuse her then those beliefs will stop her entering new relationships, keep her invisible or she may unconsciously attract exactly the relationship that confirms her beliefs.

By working with a coach who has experience and specialises in supporting women to release the negative emotions from domestic violence and painful relationships she can live a full life, she can delete the beliefs running outwith her awareness, she can install new, empowering beliefs and attract the loving and intimate relationships she desires.

There is life after domestic abuse. There is emotional freedom and there is a powerful, successful life full of purpose, excitement, joy and love available. Transformational coaching is one of the gifts women can give themselves to gain the learnings from the experience without forever being affected by it.

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Domestic Violence and 5 Ways to Recover

How to recognise the non obvious domestic violence and 5 effective ways to heal the wounds from all domestic violence

Domestic violence is physical, sexual, psychological or financial violence that takes place within an intimate or family type relationship and forms a pattern of controlling behaviour. Sometimes psychological domestic violence is referred to as abuse too.

Domestic violence is any behaviour that is threatening or violent. There are many signs of domestic violence to look for:

Verbal abuse-anything that is shouting, naming calling or threatening
Pressure tactics- sulking, disconnecting the phone, with holding your money, taking the car away or faulting statements about you.
Disrespect- putting you down in front of other people, not listening and responding to you when you talk, refusing to help with childcare and housework.
Isolation-preventing you from seeing your friends and family
Breaking trust-lying to you, withholding information from you, breaking shared agreements.
Harassment- following you, checking up on you, embarrassing you in public or opening your mail.
Threats- shouting at you, intimidating you, make violent threats, raising their voice against you.
Sexual violence- using force to perform sexual acts etc
Physical violence- slapping, hitting, biting, pushing or shoving

Domestic violence can lead to stress disorders or common reactions such as:

Fear and anxiety- This can become a permanent emotional state. Memories of the events can trigger very strong raw difficult emotions.
Nightmares and flashback-The mind cannot stop itself going through unwanted, shocking and intrusive thoughts as the experience is so intense. Nightmares can become common.
Guilt, shame and blame- Survivors often blame themselves for letting the abuse take place. The survivor starts to create a negative self-image and a negative view of the world. They often loose trust in themselves and others.
Grief and depression- Feelings of loss, sadness, and hopelessness are signs of depression. Crying spells, social withdrawal and suicidal thoughts are common when grieving over a loss of a disappointing and disastrous relationship.

To recover from domestic violence we recommend:

Stopping the self-blaming - Take responsibility for the current decisions and future decisions.
Stop isolating themselves-Build a support network and reconnect with people.
Stop minimising and dismissing their feelings-Seek to understand your feelings and thoughts on the situation by talking to a friend or a professional.
Stop identifying self as a victim- Join a support group, and start taking control of your life and make choices that benefit you.
Stop the cycle of abuse-Get help, and learn healthy ways to function in the world.

When you are a survivor of domestic violence it is important to recognise what you have been through and then deal with your feelings before you move on.

Neglecting and not talking about the experience can make the recovery harder and longer. At the same time, ensure that you don't over talk about the experience and do not stay stuck with a repeating cycle of unhelpful thoughts and feelings. Whatever approach, you take, be willing to let the experience go.

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